Looks like a lot of us are not Apple users but you have to respect their ability to make product/technology decisions that have resonated with the needs/desires of consumers. The iPod, iPhone and iPad all show how they have been able to provide solutions that matched user needs. Plus they did a good job with software as well. Microsoft and others could learn from their success

I am also amazed at the marketing success of Apple. I have never bought anything from Apple and I don't plan to. As an engineer, I feel it my duty to resist succumbing to their marketing mania when other, lower cost products can generally do the same thing - at least for my needs. I thought the automakers' marketing success with SUVs beginning 25 years ago would never be topped, but I believe Apple has done so. SUV type vehicles were available long before the 80's, but the automakers started a marketing campaign that somehow made the general populus believe they "needed" SUVs.

Spoken like a true engineer, Ervin. I have to admit that I don't have any Apple products, either. If I can get the job done with something less costly, I usually do. As an outsider looking in, it appears to me that Apple's greatest genius is marketing.

Simplicity of design? Well, it looks almost like a cell phone motherboard plugged into an overgrown display and battery. Doing it that way does make a lot of sense. It also permits multiple sourced displays to supply an existing model production run.

As miniaturization moves along its path the PC board will continue to get less complicated as more and more of the motherboard moves inside the IC packaging. If you can manage the heat and the power rail current you want to shrink the length of the interconnects to help speed up the device and reduce signal cross talk (noise).

The tablet computer will probably trend towards cheap disposable general purpose multi-media computers for all. When the device ends up costing a small fraction of the investment in software applications, how will that affect the giant software firms or should I say firm, the MS elephant in the room? Will they opt to embed all of their apps in their own hardware making it difficult if not impossible to load and run someone elses cheaper apps? Deja Vu? Or will the world of 3rd party cheapware/shareware blossom again, like cell phone apps have? And where does cloud computing fit into this model?

Right Aldo, Apple should stop releasing new models just like the auto makers should stop releasing new models with little improvements each year. I'm sure it's only a marketing strategy to get you to buy the same old thing with minor tweaks. We only want revolutionary changes. Evolutionary changes are such a bore. ;-)

I think Apple is the greedy giant. I don't support companies like these. I make my own desktops from mismatched parts from starter companies (one of the first to get GSkill ram cards at 800MHz) pay for OEM Windows and put my own sticker or logo on my computer, generally 20% cheaper too. I don't do it for the cost I do it for the pleasure of it. However apple does not only sell hardware, they sell art as well. There will come a day when I will select form over function. I have already succumbed to a galaxy G2X. Maybe one day i will own an Apple iPad or iPhone.

The iPad 3 is beautiful the same way the iPad two is, Apple should stop releasing new models with little improvements and wait more time to get something more interesting and technologically advanced, I think this is only a marketing strategy and not really an amazing new product anymore. Anyway the slides are very nice thanks!

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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